Resources

Women in political leadership in Arab countries

In a study of 330 separate political parties in Asia, Europe and Africa, researchers gathered information to assess how the characteristics of the political parties influence women’s chances of assuming leadership roles in government. Researchers gathered information about parties' year of origin, number of seats in parliament, political platform, and all sex-disaggregated party data (in percentages) on overall party membership, shares in executive and decision-making bodies, and nominations on electoral lists. They also measured the role of religion in each party’s political platform and agenda. The data was collected in 26 countries including Lebanon and 12 other Arab nations, seven non-Arab Muslim-majority countries, five European countries with dominant Christian democratic parties, and Israel. The results are available on the website of the Association of Religion Data Archives, which exists to catalog and provide access to data sets from high-quality research on religion. Read about the political parties and how their characteristics affect women in the Arab countries surveyed; in Europe and Israel; in Lebanon; and non-Arab Muslim-majority countries.